25 March 2009

Never one to go for the obvious story, while everybody ponders over Brown's stimulus and King's proverbial bitchslap, I have taken a less obvious angle

Namely that this whole Tory inheritance tax thing is rumbling on. Now you may dismiss it as a flash in the pan too minor to keep Labour in the hot seat, but you never know - it's not as if the Tories are in a solid position with their lack of policies and unpopular front men

Now while Harman infuriated me immensely today at PMQs with her only response being that the Tories only want a tax cut for millionaires, it is somewhat of a better angle than 'do nothing Tories' - and the fact that there's obviously a bit of internal strife about it going on could put voters off

Honestly I think Clarke was trying to be wise by saying the cut wasn't a top priority - we weren't in a massive recession when they thought of it and it was quite popular with our inflated house prices at the time - it makes sense to say it wasn't that important any more

Unfortunately I would hazard a guess that the others aren't quite in agreement with good old Ken - whether it's to serve their own wealthy interests or they think their core of well-off middle-class voters quite like the idea, even if we are in recession

But it is a pickle - I don't think the class war aspect is a massive player, as Labour would like to think - but certainly had Ken not stirred the hornet's nest the Tories might have been a bit better off with a few ex-Labour voters

I think the real issue, however, is that the Tories have been made to look disorganised, and image is everything with politics - people don't want to see Osbourne and Clarke having a spat over such a small, unimportant issue

Clarke is probably right to describe it as media hysteria - this shouldn't be a crucial issue and the back down is more likely because the Tories are currently obsessed with keeping very quiet and letting Labour dig their own graves - but that doesn't mean people don't take note - media overreaction or not, people do read the media - that's kind of the point, and if they want to show the Tories as disagreeing, they will

The Tories don't have a cemented position as the inheritors as Blair did, with his hope and promises, back in 97 - they are the default, which means Labour will lose - not that Tories will get votes

This is of course, welcomed by me - the smaller the majority the better, in my opinion - but I have been warning that the Tories could throw away their loosely-held lead with a few little cock-ups and I wonder if this is one such slip-up

It is, of course, good for the LibDems, and democracyHarriet Harman's disgusting show at PMQs however, was not. Seen here in a lovely pin-striped suitette (courtesy of BBC),four times she answered a question about employment and fiscal stimuli with Tory inheritance cuts (although Hague put her in her place with her lineage at least). - There wasn't even a good old tractor list - just attacking the people who have been in opposition for 12 years - and then she even had a bloody planted question about the inheritance cut

A question, not about the government, but about the opposition's policy! That is completely against the point of PMQs - it is very typical of Labour to revert to attacking the Tories as they only ever think tribally, but that frankly shocked and disgusted me

I guess I should mention Daniel Hannan's video - currently doing the viral rounds as the mainstream media can't pick it up, but it is truly brilliant and I can't see any Brit disagreeing with it

Me:

That's Proper Liberalism

About me

Tarquin is a lazy, good-for-nothing, would-be historian who gets easily distracted by idiocy, hypocrisy (particularly of politicians) and football.

The name Tarquin comes from a couple of late Roman kings, and also from a Monty Python sketch, and possibly from some hippies I annoyed several years ago. Peter Hitchens has a problem with my name for some reason, the only reasoning for this seems to be that he thinks it's not a real name...which I'm pretty sure it is, although I'm open to being proven wrong.

Favourite hobbies include: eating, reading, shouting at the TV, watching football and pontificating.